Of Towels and Locks
by AMountainFullOfDragons
Summary: In which Yukina realizes showers aren't as loud as she thought they were and Kuwabara's face will never be the right color again. "Yukina prides herself on having learned many, many things since coming to the human world – she operates radios and TVs as if she had grown up with them and can navigate bus routes and trains. But apparently nothing had prepared her for this."


Originally posted to Archive of our Own on Feb 22 2018. Just a quick story of a young couple, overwhelming embarrassment, and forgetting doors have locks. Originally headcanoned as an **asexual relationship** between Yukina and Kuwabara

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Today is a good day. In fact, it's a _great_ day and it could even be _fantastic_ so long as she arrives back at the apartment before the rain falls. Yukina knew she should have checked the weather before she hung out the laundry but she'd just been so _excited_ to get going that she'd never once turned on the TV. She looks up at the darkening sky for a moment as she waits at a red light. She isn't too far away from the apartment now, a mere block or two left to go, so even as laden with groceries as she is Yukina feels confident she'll arrive home to save her clean clothes from needing to dry all over again. Regardless, she bounces on her heels as she waits for the crossing light to turn green.

As soon as it does, before the jingle can even start playing, she continues her hurried pace back to the apartment. The apartment she shares with Kazuma, just the two of them. The reminder makes her a little giddy. Yukina's excitement as much as the looming rain keeps up her pace despite the several grocery bags and the cake box she carries. In fact, she's so focused on her task that she barely thinks to return the hello from one of their new neighbors. She darts around an elderly man and his dog near the stairwell and if the stairs were just slightly _shorter_, or she was carrying one less bag, she _might_ have tried to take them two at a time. The ice demon puts down her bags at the fourth floor apartment door to dig out the key from her little purse. Once she settles them all back in her arms, she uses the weight to help push the door open.

It closes a little more loudly than Yukina had intended behind her, but she's too busy attempting to toe off her shoes to prevent the noise. It was the middle of the day however, and in the week they had been living there so far Yukina had yet to see many people during the day time. They can handle one door _just this once_ she's certain. The short woman has to lean against the wall in the _genkan_ to get out of her shoes without putting down her bags, but she eventually manages. Yukina leaves them haphazardly piled there and rushes into the kitchen to put her groceries down. She puts the bags down on the counter, having to pause so they won't fall when she walks away, and then crosses the apartment to the balcony. The first threatening raindrops are starting to hit the concrete flooring as she opens the sliding door. The ice demon doesn't waste any time getting the basket perched on the washing machine. She puts towel after towel, garment after garment, over the back of their new sofa so that she can work as fast as possible. All her dry laundry is safely inside and her balcony door is firmly closed by the time it really begins to sprinkle. Yukina smiles brightly and straightens one of her dresses where it lays before she returns to the groceries.

She had gotten some wonderful fish to grill for dinner and she carefully puts them into the new fridge to keep chill. She'll need to get some rice going soon enough, put together the salad too, as well as finally pick which soup she wants to make to go with it all as she has the ingredients for two of Kazuma's favorites on hand. But first she gets her perishables put away and then carefully hides the cake box behind the coffee maker, knowing that her boyfriend won't feel the need to touch the machine again until the next morning. It's a perfect place to stash things so that he'll be surprised. With that work done, Yukina can't help bouncing on her feet with a giddy smile on her face. The ice demon spins around her kitchen once and then moves back to the laundry.

They had only been living there for a week. It sure _felt_ longer, between the unpacking and the sofa they had bought being delivered, and all the other little things that come from adjusting to a new living space. The fourth floor apartment is still sparsely decorated as the couple had only brought in what they already had. The sofa had been the only splurge they could currently afford. But it brings their little living area to life and seems to drive home that it's _their_ apartment, together, alone, and for the first time.

Of course right now she's using it to hold her dry laundry and hopes that Kazuma wouldn't mind.

She goes on auto pilot as she starts sorting it all, folding what needs to be folded, matching what has matches, and setting aside what needs to be hung up. All the while she debates between a particularly vegetable heavy _miso_ soup Kazuma had developed a fondness for during college or a slightly simpler one filled with the _soumen_ noodles she knows are in the cabinet. Though she has never personally paired either with the type of fish she has to grill, the short woman is certain that either one will make Kazuma quite happy. But that doesn't make her decision easier, because she doesn't want him _just_ to be happy or the day to _just_ be great – she wants it to be _fantastic_, to be _perfect_. After all, it isn't every day that you celebrate someone's first job after their college graduation.

Yukina smiles to herself again as she folds a set of bath towels. Tonight is the night they are going to personally, _privately _celebrate the job Kazuma was offered so shortly after graduation. The carrot top was so excited by it that she still isn't sure which job it was that he had gotten. What she does know is that a dream had come true, Kazuma Kuwabara was now a scientist – a real scientist, he had said, perhaps the only clear sentence in all his excitement the night before. Not a salaryman, a_ scientist_. She hopes to find out the details over dinner now that they'll _actually_ have the time to talk and celebrate. The poor man had rushed out the door almost as soon as he had received the news to meet up with Yusuke at Genkai's old temple, which was still in the works of growing into a thriving safe space for a variety of demons.

Because of this, Yukina hopes to have dinner going, perhaps even ready, by the time her boyfriend returns from the previously planned trip. She knows they will likely have another group celebration later, the next time Yusuke's stand is closed for the night probably, but that isn't going to stop her from giving him a wonderful one between just the two of them.

"Maybe the vegetable soup…" she murmurs to herself, still trying to decide between side dishes even as she finishes with the towels. She picks up a few of them and walks down the short hall to the bath – the bath was half the reason Kazuma had advocated for this particular apartment. Recently renovated, the heating unit was now in fantastic shape, the rectangular tub actually allowed the lanky man to stretch out some as he soaked, and the sink in the partitioned room was at a height that didn't put all the compromise between their statures on one of them. As if to tip things further into its favor, it had a place for spare towels underneath as well. She'd been convinced fairly quickly herself.

Yukina opens the door at the same time Kazuma is reaching for a towel hanging off to the side, still dripping wet from the shower he had apparently been taking. They make brief eye contact before Yukina, surprisingly calmly, shuts the door and moves back to her pile of laundry in the other room. She puts the towels back down, sits down against the wall, and puts her head in her knees.

One week into finally living alone together and she has already walked in on her boyfriend getting out of the shower. She isn't sure which kind of record that must be breaking. She can feel her face heating up. How had she missed it? How didn't she know someone was in the shower? Had she really been in such a rush she hadn't noticed Kazuma's shoes in the _genkan_? Why hadn't she heard the _water_ going? How far into her own head had she been? She's just adjusting to _sharing a bed _with him, how in the world is she going to sit across from him at dinner and ask about the job now?

Yukina prides herself on having learned many, _many_ things since coming to the human world – she operates radios and TVs as if she had grown up with them, can navigate bus routes and trains and even has a fair understanding of how the different modes of transportation work, she has a wonderful little group of friends who take her out shopping and to movies as if she has never once been out of place. Even her healing skills have grown over the years, as anatomical models, detailed drawings in books, and outright practice help shape the images she gets in her mind as she works on a wound or checks someone over for troubles, sharpened them so she can work faster and easier. But apparently nothing had yet prepared her for walking in on her naked b-

The heat in her face doubles as something _else_ comes to mind.

"Um, …" Kazuma squeaks from around the corner. He pops his head in and they make eye contact.

"I've never actually seen one before," Yukina blurts out as he enters, now dressed but with his hair still wet. She slams a hand over her mouth. Kazuma turns on his heel in an instant and is back out the door.

"That's not what I meant to say!" Yukina says so rapidly she isn't sure that the man can understand her. But then she hears him sit down heavily and a bubble of nervous giggles comes from the hallway.

"I mean…" It's her turn to squeak. She can hear him laugh a little bit more, in relief she thinks, and then Kazuma pokes his too red face around the corner.

"Um?" is all he can get out again, his face as red as a tomato, but he _does_ manage to pull out an embarrassed smile for her. So there they are, Kazuma still in the doorway and her against the wall, both bright red and trying not to think about how she'd never actually seen male genitalia until that point. It's not working very well because the red on Kazuma's face sits across his cheek bones and resolutely takes over his ears as well as they stare. Yukina can't imagine what she must look like to him.

It's quiet for so long that her mouth decides to run away with her.

"I mean, it's just," she starts suddenly and he jumps in surprise, "you get an idea of where everything _is_ and how its _shaped_ when you work on someone and I've had a_ lot_ of practice since I started healing people and, _and_," she suddenly can't get the thought out coherently and mutters through a few words and more ands before it rushes out, "I mostly work on _men_ so you know, you get…." And Yukina stalls again, her hands coming up to try and take over but she has no idea what she's attempting to pantomime. Whatever it looks like, it and everything else causes the red on Kazuma's face to start heading down his neck now that it's finished with his ears.

"So, yea," she finally squeaks, shoving her hands in her armpits so she'll stop doing _whatever it is_ she's doing. Yukina has looked them all over after multiple fights, Kazuma, Yusuke, Kurama, and even Hiei when he lets her. She has even had the chance to check Botan and Keiko, even Shizuru, though they don't get into scrapes nearly so often. So she has always had a rough, fuzzy idea of where things were, the shape of a human heart, the way muscles worked in limbs, where the blood vessels went when she healed a bleeding wound.

It just wasn't until the books that she really discovered what each of these things looked like beyond the fuzzy mental map in her head. Now it's _always _overlaid with what things like what the heart actually look like. If she blinks she can see the heart as she feels it pumping away in Kazuma's body while she works. So _of course_ that extends to the genitals, even more fuzzily than any other part of the body – except maybe the brain, oh is it hard for her to understand what her powers send back about that – but she'd never actually went _looking_…. And now she, sort of, kind of, quickly and haphazardly, _knows_.

The absolute worst part is the curious side of her wants to know _more_ now. It wants to be able to do the same as it does with the heart, like she wants to be able to do with everything she heals. But perhaps the information can come from a nice, safe _book_ instead. And maybe with no one else around, too.

"Nothing in our bodies is hidden from you, is it?" Yukina isn't sure when she started looking at the ground but she jerks back up and Kazuma has this weird expression on his face – like he's horrified and amused at the same time.

"Um…not if I really go looking, in a way…," she concedes. Kazuma blinks at her once while he processes it and then more nervous laughter bubbles up. He rubs at his face and then locks eyes with her.

"I wouldn't tell anyone that."

Yukina smiles again, "I've been trying _not_ to!" She pauses. "….but I _think_ Botan might already know."

She watches the realization dawn on his face and the red that had been starting to fade comes back before he begins to laugh. The longer he laughs, the bigger Yukina feels her smile grow until she's laughing with him, both their faces red. It takes some time before they both calm down to occasional hiccups of laughter, setting the other off for a moment again before they can truly calm down.

Finally Kazuma shuffles over to Yukina and sits down beside her. They are silent for a moment. Kazuma drums his fingers on the hardwood and she plays with the hem of her sleeve. Eventually, he clears his throat and then speaks.

"There's a lock on the bathroom door, I'll try and remember it next time."

Yukina nods. "And I'll try to listen for the shower. I don't know how I missed it." The couple looks at each other and nod at each other so suddenly and resolutely that they break into another fit of giggles. The embarrassment is still high, but Yukina feels better.

"Can we _not_ tell _anyone_ about this?" she asks. Kazuma looks at her with the most scandalized look on his face.

"Are you _kidding_, if Urameshi_ ever_ finds out, I will _never_ live this down. There was a lock Yukina, _a lock_!" The carrot top pauses and thinks for a moment, "And if our moving in here is anything to go by, he'll also tell me to avoid shorty for, like, _ever_ after this."

Yukina processes the statement and then moves to kneel, offering her boyfriend her pinky. He's still talking about Yusuke's vague references to Hiei's hostilities when he notices.

"This is _absolutely_ a secret," she says with as much conviction as she can put into her voice as possible. She has pinky promised with Keiko before and doesn't even think about what she's doing when she offers it to Kazuma. His face goes red again but the soft way he looks at her tells Yukina that this time is very different. The taller man loops his pinky with hers and the deed is done.

(Kazuma picks the vegetable soup to go with their fish that night and, after saving several parts of his new paychecks, gifts her with a med student grade biology and anatomy textbook. She loves him dearly, but neither of them can look at it without blushing.)


End file.
